S. 3002, the McCain-Dorgan Senate Bill, Threatens Your Access to Nutritional Supplements
February 16, 2010 by Becki Baumgartner
Filed under In The News
Senators McCain and Dorgan have outraged millions of Americans in one fell swoop with S. 3002! They have flat-out attacked dietary supplements in their newly introduced “Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010.” Without understanding or respect for the detailed and complex laws and regulations of the people’s treasured Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), McCain has misled the American people. On February 3, 2010, he stood on the Senate floor and said: “The dietary supplement industry is one that is mostly self-regulated”! How could a Senator make such a public statement that is so completely false? Could he be unaware of the hundreds of pages of the DSHEA laws and regulations that manufacturers must follow in order to keep their products on the market and protect Americans’ access to safe dietary supplements?
His comments about creating a more restrictive bill due to concerns from athletes that have taken adulterated products shows his inability to point the finger where it belongs. We already have laws against adulterated products! DSHEA prohibits putting adulterated or contaminated foods and dietary supplements on the market. Those laws work. DSHEA includes detailed and complex Good Manufacturing Practices and requirements for all dietary supplements. Those regulations work as DSHEA regulates foods and dietary supplements/nutrients and concerns itself with safety on all levels.
McCain appears to want to over-regulate food and dietary supplements as if they were dangerous drugs instead of enforcing existing, effective food and dietary supplement laws. He sidesteps the safety history of dietary supplements in favor of more and more unnecessary and hostile regulation that will squelch a consumer-driven industry. He suggests additional pre-market registration requirements for all manufacturers and products. He suggests mandating reporting of “non-serious” adverse events even when there is no proof or verification of causation. This would be in addition to the current serious adverse event reporting requirements passed into existing law within the past three years.
Americans hold that dietary supplements are not drugs, they are nutrients, generally regarded as safe, and the government already has the ability to take them off the market if they pose a risk of harm. We encourage the marketing of nutrients. It is our right as Americans to eat nutrients of all kinds without first proving, like drugs, that they are effective to eat. We care about safety. But it is our right to decide what we want to eat.
Help defeat S. 3002! Tell McCain and Dorgan to honor our existing law prohibiting adulterated products and requiring good manufacturing practices. Tell them to aggressively protect dietary supplements as foods and not drugs. Say NO to S. 3002. Stop this bill before it goes anywhere.
Send this letter to your senator! (PDF)
Read the original draft bill. (PDF)
Source: Nature’s Sunshine, Personal Communication , February 16, 2010. Copied in Entirety.
IF YOU GET A RESPONSE FROM YOUR SENATOR, PLEASE SHARE IT WITH US BY POSTING A COPY BELOW.
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Disclaimer: The statements in this article are for educational purposes only and have not been evaluated by or sanctioned by the FDA. Only your doctor can properly diagnose and treat any disease or disorder. The remedies discussed herein are not meant to treat or cure any type of disease. The user understands that the above information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician or a pharmacist.
Wow, I actually got a response to my letter…
From: senator@corker.senate.gov [mailto:senator@corker.senate.gov]
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 8:29 AM
To: beckibaumgartner@comcast.net
Subject: Responding to your message
Dear Ms. Baumgartner,
Thank you for contacting my office about S. 3002, the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010. Your input is important to me and I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts with me.
Dietary supplements are an important part of a prevention-based diet for many Americans, and I understand the concerns many have about treating supplements and drugs identically. As you say, replacing existing law and allowing FDA to have authority over excluded dietary supplements could potentially have a negative effect on the industry as a whole. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act is currently in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Should the bill come before the entire Senate for a vote, the insights you have provided will certainly help my staff and me as we look into the issue.
Thank you again for your letter. I hope you will continue to share your thoughts with me.
Sincerely,
Bob Corker
United States Senator
The FDA is a step closer to placing supplements under the tutelage of big pharmaceutical companies and all that implies.
I do not ascribe to the efficacy of all the supplements, for example I have some major objections to homeopathic meds, but the government has no right to further regulate beyond the DSHEA which assures that the supplement is safe to ingest/apply.
Good move Becki.
This is a response sent to Lona Jackson, in Athens,Alabama. Thanks Lona, for sharing with us!!
March 8, 2010
Ms. Lona F. Jackson
22239 Merlot Drive
Athens, AL 35613-2328
Dear Ms. Jackson:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Dietary Supplement Safety Act
of 2010 (S. 3002). I appreciate you sharing your concerns with me.
As you may know, S. 3002 was introduced by Senator John McCain on
February 4, 2010 and is currently pending before the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions for review. This legislation would
amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to grant to the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) greater authority to regulate dietary
supplements.
Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA),
the dietary supplement manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that a
dietary supplement is safe before it is marketed. The FDA may take
action against any unsafe dietary supplement product only after it
reaches the market. Under current law, the FDA regulates dietary
supplements under a different set of regulations than those covering
conventional foods, prescription drugs and over-the-counter products.
Due to the current law, manufacturers do not need to register their
products with the FDA, nor get FDA approval before producing or selling
dietary supplements. Manufacturers, therefore, must make sure that
product label information is truthful and not misleading.
S. 3002 was introduced as a direct result of certain professional
athletes who have tested positive for a banned substance after taking
dietary supplements that contained banned ingredients. This legislation
would impose new facility and product registration requirements on
manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and would provide
the FDA authority to impose civil monetary penalties for violations of
the Act. The bill would also grant authority for the FDA to require a
mandatory recall of certain misbranded, counterfeit or adulterated
products.
As a former doctor I understand how important it is to trust the safety
.
of supplements and their affect on your health and I assure you that I
will continue to monitor this legislation very closely. Currently, no
companion legislation has been introduced in the House of
Representatives. Should this or similar legislation be brought before
the full House for a vote, I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind.
Thank you again for sharing your concerns and I trust you will continue
to share your views with me. To sign up for email updates, please visit
North Alabama’s Fifth District website at http://www.Griffith.house.gov
Sincerely,
Parker Griffith
Member of Congress
Which pharmaceutical companies are paying off McCain for this one? Don’t people understand that prescription medications are all poisonous to the body and that they kill tens of thousands of people every year? How many have supplements killed? The supplement market has been growing steadily as people are waking up to the fact that prescription drugs are poison. This is having a direct impact on the pocketbooks of big Pharma. Corruption at its best. And just think, this moron could have been our president. He should be in jail.
This one didn’t pass, but there is a new one in the works – New Bill S.3414 – DIETARY SUPPLEMENT FULL IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 2010 – http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3414.IS: